In this final article of the series, we will examine some of the logical fallacies in Phillip Dennis’s latest attempt to refute the conventionality thesis of the physics of Einstein.[1] Logical fallacies are fundamental errors in reasoning. They are not necessarily errors of fact, nor errors in science, but errors in thinking itself. Arguments containing one or more fallacies are untrustworthy and result in an unreliable conclusion. Competence in logic does not require detailed knowledge of science or philosophy. Knowledge of logical fallacies can prevent a person from being fooled by a bad argument. This is why this topic is so important, not only in apologetics but in life.
The Fallacy of Irrelevant Thesis
Our first category of fallacious reasoning is the fallacy of irrelevant thesis. This is an argument that may (or may not) prove something, but it is not the point at issue. Both Dennis’s first paper and his response to my refutation of it commit this error in reasoning. Namely, Dennis was attempting to disprove the ASC model, which is based on the premise that the Bible uses the Visual Synchrony Convention (the same as ASC) when timestamping events, rather than the modern Einstein Synchrony Convention (ESC). And so presumably, he should have shown Scriptures that necessarily use ESC or given some kind of logical argument that the Bible uses ESC. But such an argument was entirely absent from either paper. Therefore, neither of Dennis’s papers even addressed the relevant issue. Namely, does the Bible use ASC, ESC, or some other convention?
Instead, Dennis’s papers were both failed attempts to disprove the conventionality thesis of relativity: Einstein’s claim that the one-way speed of light is not a property of nature but a humanly stipulated convention by which we define simultaneous events for a given observer. Not everyone agrees with the conventionality thesis, but no one has been able to disprove it despite over one hundred years of technical papers on the topic. If Dennis were interested in disproving Einstein’s claim, then the appropriate forum would be a standard physics journal where multiple experts on relativity could vet his article. But he did not do this. Is this because he knows it would not stand up to rational scrutiny? In any case, I was able to expose the errors in Dennis’s arguments against the conventionality thesis and show that all of them begged the question and had already been refuted in the technical literature.
The point here is that Dennis’s arguments were utterly irrelevant to the heart of the ASC model: namely, does the Bible use the ASC convention? Even if the conventionality thesis were somehow shown to be incompatible with the mathematical machinery of relativity (which it has not), would that prevent the Bible from using ASC anyway? After all, “local time” is not compatible with the mathematical machinery of physics (because it violates causality), and yet the Bible definitely uses local time. That is, “noon” is defined as when the sun is highest in the sky at a given location, rather than Greenwich Standard Time, as astrophysicists often use today.
Additionally, in my refutation of Dennis’s first paper, I demonstrated that the conventionality thesis follows logically from the relativity of simultaneity – a fundamental principle of the physics of Einstein. This logically disproved Dennis’s position. Not only did Dennis fail to refute my proof in his second paper, he didn’t even mention it. Thus, his entire second paper is simply the fallacy of irrelevant thesis since it did not even address my argument.
Begging the Question
The petitio principii or “begging the question” is the logical error of assuming as a premise the very thing you are attempting to prove in the conclusion. Such reasoning is fallacious because you can use it to “prove” absolutely anything – even things that are false – by simply arbitrarily assuming them at the start. Would anyone accept the following argument as good? “All dogs are reptiles. Therefore, all dogs are reptiles.” Of course not. And yet, the fallacy of begging the question sometimes fools people because the premise smuggles in the conclusion in a concealed way. It’s worded differently than the conclusion or is only true if the conclusion is. For example, “We know this medication may cause drowsiness because it is a sedative.” But since a sedative is defined as a medication that can cause drowsiness, the premise is logically equivalent to the conclusion. The argument proves nothing.
Dennis’s first paper was based entirely on an example of begging the question because he attempted to prove ESC by assuming an equation based on ESC at the first step.[2] Namely, he had written the invariant spacetime interval using ESC coordinates and then showed that this leads to the conclusion that the one-way speed of light is isotropic. But ESC coordinates are based on the stipulation that the one-way speed of light is isotropic. So in using an equation based on ESC coordinates, Dennis had arbitrarily assumed the very thing he was attempting to prove. In my refutation, I proved this and also showed that using the correct equation (which does not assume ESC) does not lead to Dennis’s conclusion.[3]
Confirmation Bias
The confirmation bias is an error in reasoning often committed by beginner students of science. It is the error of judging one position right and the competing position wrong on the basis that the former fits the data, without checking to see if the competing position also fits the data. For example, Ptolemy’s geocentric model of the solar system predicts that Venus will never appear further from the sun than 46 degrees. Observations confirm this is indeed the case. Suppose a student concludes, “Therefore, Ptolemy’s geocentric model is correct, and heliocentrism is wrong.” This would be a confirmation bias because the heliocentric solar system also predicts that Venus never departs from the sun by more than 46 degrees as seen from Earth. This particular observation is consistent with either model and, therefore, cannot be used to reject one in favor of the other.
Dennis committed this error multiple times in his second attempt to disprove the conventionality thesis when he proposed observations that he judged to be incompatible with ASC merely on the basis that they were consistent with ESC.[4] In particular, he considered the observations of a laser beam reflecting off of various points and into a camera. He noted that the timings were consistent with ESC, and fallaciously concluded that ASC is false. But he failed to compute what observations ASC predicts, or he would have realized that it makes the same observational predictions. This must always be the case since ASC and ESC are merely different coordinate systems for describing the same four-dimensional reality. The details of this are found in the third article of this series.
As a second example, Dennis considered the timings of radio signals received from distant spacecraft. He noted that they are consistent with the ESC system in which the radio takes time to reach Earth. He then fallaciously concluded that this disproves ASC. But he failed to do the computation in ASC coordinates (using the proper time dilation formula), or he would have discovered that it makes exactly the same predictions in which the radio pulses arrive instantly. This again is the confirmation bias. The details are in the fourth article of this series.
The Question-Begging Epithet
Very common in internet debates is the fallacy of the question-begging epithet. This occurs when a person uses biased language rather than logic in an attempt to persuade. A reporter might use such a tactic to convince his audience that a particular person is guilty of murder by saying, “The murderer fled the scene.” But a more objective reporter would say, “The suspect fled the scene.” The former sentence is an unethical rhetorical attempt to persuade people of something that is unproven and might therefore be false. What if the suspect is later proved to be innocent? Then the first reporter’s statement is actually a lie. Although there is a place for emotional language, it is not a replacement for rational reasoning. The question-begging epithet may succeed in persuading a person on emotional grounds by sidestepping logic. But it is not ethical or rational. Such examples are common in Dennis’s second paper.
For example, Dennis entitled his second paper, “A Refutation of Lisle’s ‘Refutation’ of Dennis (2024).” The subtle fallacy here is that Dennis refers to my refutation in quotes, indicating non-literal usage. He was implying that my paper was not actually a refutation at all. But he did so by using biased language rather than logical argumentation. In fact, my paper was a devastating refutation of Dennis’s first paper, pointing out that he had begged the question by assuming ESC in the first equation of his attempt to prove ESC. Did Dennis counter my actual argument in his second paper? Did he try to argue that his first equation was not based on ESC? No. Nothing in his second paper even addressed my main refutation of the argument he put in his first paper. Thus, he attempts to simply distract readers from the fact that his first paper had been thoroughly refuted. “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Move along.”
In another example, Dennis states, “The most serious part of this belief is not only his [Lisle’s] major mathematical errors, but the heretical belief in spacetime as an actual entity and that the past is still there.” Notice the unproven assertions: (1) that I made a mathematical error and (2) that belief in spacetime is heretical. But Dennis didn’t identify a single mathematical error in my derivation of travel time in the superluminal case. He didn’t even address my actual mathematical proof! Nor, of course, could he identify any heretical aspects of the conviction that the past, present, and future are equally real – for these are biblical convictions. Indeed, I proved in part five of this series that it is Dennis’s presentism, not eternalism, that leads to heretical conclusions. Namely, if the past is not real, then Jesus did not die on the cross since that was a past event. In such a case, the Gospel would be meaningless. Rather than making a rational argument for his claims, Dennis simply asserts them by smuggling them in rhetorically.
Another example which Dennis states multiple times is my alleged “reverential attitude toward Einstein.” This seems to be a rhetorical attempt to cover up the fact that Dennis’s position is incompatible with the physics that Einstein discovered. Dennis gives lip service to believing in the science of relativity, but he ultimately rejects it because it is incompatible with his antibiblical philosophy of presentism as shown in part eight of this series. The physics of relativity is one of the most empirically verified and well-tested branches of science. Most of it is provable, as I demonstrated in The Physics of Einstein.[5] This is why I accept it, contrary to Dennis’s rhetorical assertion.
The Strawman Fallacy
The strawman fallacy is the unethical practice of misrepresenting an opponent’s position and then refuting that misrepresentation rather than the opponent’s actual position. It may be effective in persuading people that the opponent is in error. But it is not logical, nor is it ethical. Some strawman arguments can arise accidentally when a person genuinely misunderstands his opponent’s position. However, if a person is going to attempt to publicly refute his opponent, is it not incumbent upon that person to research his opponent’s position carefully so that he represents it accurately? Thus, a strawman fallacy is often a symptom of intellectual laziness. The person simply didn’t bother to carefully study his opponent’s public work. On the other hand, sometimes people will deliberately misrepresent the position of their opponent. This indicates a severe lack of intellectual integrity. Both kinds of errors are present in Dennis’s papers.
For example, Dennis states, “So, what exactly is eternalism in SR? It is the philosophical belief in a real block universe (now called spacetime) in which there is no passage or flow of time. There is no present. All events past and future exist timelessly and statically in a four-dimensional Minkowski space. Nothing happens.” Of course, that is completely false. Dennis badly misrepresents my position and then refutes that misrepresentation. Rather, eternalism is the view in which all times are equally real. That is my position. Eternalism certainly does not claim that “there is no present,” but rather that the future and past are as real as the present. Eternalism certainly doesn’t claim that “nothing happens,” nor does it deny that humans perceive the passage of time. Dennis’s misunderstanding here might stem from the fact that physicists like myself often represent two of the four dimensions of spacetime on a spatial surface (like a chalkboard or paper), which is of course static. But we recognize that one of the dimensions represents time, and therefore things do happen. Indeed, the things happening in spacetime are called events. I am certainly willing to grant that Dennis’s false claims here may be based on his ignorance of the literature rather than a deliberate lie. But such ignorance is not scholarly in a technical discussion on the topic.
On the other hand, some strawman fallacies cannot be attributed to ignorance but rather are deliberate deception. When Dennis claims, “One of the most striking of his errors is his belief in the possibility of time travel.” Again, he states, “Lisle thinks time travel to the past might be possible.” Dennis then proceeds to refute this false representation. But Dennis has simply lied about my position. Not only do I deny that time travel into the past is impossible, I actually prove it in the very book Dennis is criticizing, where I conclude the following: “Unrestrained time travel into the past is simply not possible because it inevitably leads to the possibility of contradiction” (underline added). Again, I state in the book, “Therefore, we must conclude that backward time travel for a person is not possible” (underline added). Dennis is claiming that I believe the exact opposite of what I directly state in the book. His tactic may be effective in persuading people of his claims, but it is not ethical nor scholarly.
The Ad Hominem Fallacy
Sometimes, when a person cannot refute his opponent’s claim, he begins to attack his opponent directly: the ad hominem fallacy. These can be attacks on the opponent’s character, education, knowledge, motivations, or whatever. But this is illogical, because none of these things are relevant to the opponent’s argument. If Hitler himself claimed that “2 + 2 = 4,” the claim would not automatically be false simply because Hitler was wicked. An argument must be evaluated on its own merit, not on the character or motivations of the person making it. A good person with education and right motives can still make a bad argument. Conversely, a wicked, uneducated person with wrong motives can still make a good argument. The ad hominem fallacy is therefore utterly irrational and is often used as a last resort by people who know they are losing the debate. This may be why they are so common in Dennis’s second attempt.
There are two types of ad hominem fallacies. One is the circumstantial ad hominem, in which a person attacks the circumstances or motivations of his opponent rather than his opponent’s argument. We see an example of this when Dennis says, “Lisle’s philosophy appears to be driven by his reverential attitude towards Einstein’s philosophy of eternalism and his infatuation with time travel that would only be possible in the block universe of four dimensional spacetime.” But how does Dennis know what “drives” (motivates) my position? Is he telepathic? In any case, his speculative assertion is false. My philosophy is based on Scripture driven by my love of Christ. It is Christ, not Einstein, whom I follow unwaveringly. Thus, I embrace Einstein’s discoveries about the nature of time because they are consistent with the Bible and with observations, yet I reject Einstein’s deism because it is contrary to Scripture. Likewise, I reject time travel into the past because it leads to contradictions which are inconsistent with the nature of God (even if such hypotheticals make for some interesting sci-fi stories).
But more importantly, such motivations are utterly irrelevant to the soundness of my argument. I have demonstrated that the physics of Einstein easily explains distant starlight in a “young” universe. My motivations for making such an argument are not relevant to whether the argument is sound. But since Dennis hasn’t been able to show any error in my argument, he resorts to making assertions about my motivations. This is not scholarly.
Additionally, there is the abusive ad hominem fallacy. This occurs when a person attacks his opponent’s character, education, and so on. Children behave this way when confronted with an argument they cannot refute: “Yeah? Well, you’re a stupid-head!” But insults are no substitute for a logical argument. So it is disappointing to see attacks on my education in Dennis’s papers – particularly his second one. It is also quite ironic given that I have thoroughly refuted Dennis’s arguments and demonstrated that he has not read the relevant technical literature.
For example, Dennis states, “Hopefully you will see that Jason Lisle has not kept up with the latest in technology…” He is referring to the data from the New Horizon’s mission as well as data from experiments involving rapid imaging of laser beams. In fact, I am quite familiar with both, but I recognize that they do not prove what Dennis thinks they do. So Dennis is mistaken. More importantly, I have demonstrated that his arguments based on these technologies were unsound because he failed to correctly compute the predicted observations based on ASC; that is, Dennis committed the confirmation bias. Ironically, the mistakes Dennis made in his arguments proved beyond all doubt the he, not I, had failed to read the technical literature on this subject. Recall that Dennis’s argument based on slow-clock transport was refuted over one hundred years ago by Arthur Eddinigton, as was shown in the fourth article of this series.
Again, Dennis states, “Lisle’s comment reveals a stunning lack of awareness of the philosophical literature on the nature of time.” It doesn’t seem to occur to Dennis that I am well aware of the different positions on time but reject his position as irrational, antibiblical, and inconsistent with physics. I had given Dennis an opportunity to clarify his position, and perhaps to distinguish it from the internally incoherent and heretical presentism advocated by open theists. Sadly, his view is the same as theirs. But his insult is utterly irrelevant to my arguments against presentism. Regardless of how much or how little I have read on the topic, I have made an argument for the biblical view of time that Dennis has been unable to refute. So he resorted to an ad hominem fallacy which has no logical merit.
Dennis again states, “And displays his limited philosophical knowledge.” Ironically, Dennis is apparently unaware that my apologetic specialty is actually philosophy and is in line with that of the late Christian philosopher Dr. Greg Bahnsen. But more importantly, if Dennis thinks that my argument is weak philosophically, then why didn’t he try to refute my actual argument, rather than use an ad hominem fallacy? The only attempts he made to refute eternalism in favor of presentism were strawman arguments – claiming that eternalists like myself believe “there is no present,” that “nothing happens,” and that “all events past and future exist timelessly and statically.” But I believe none of these things. Rather, the essential feature that distinguishes eternalism from presentism is that the eternalist believes that the past, present, and future are equally real. And wouldn’t Dennis know this if he had bothered to read the actual literature on this topic? Ironic indeed.
Unfortunately, Dennis’s second paper was full of such ad hominem fallacies. I will not go through all of them because (1) that would take a second series of articles, and (2) there is no intellectual merit to any of them. Such insults may emotionally persuade people who are not familiar with logic. But they have no rational merit. I could have easily made such comments about Dennis’s lack of knowledge of the conventionality thesis in my first paper refuting his original argument, and such comments would have been accurate. But instead, I respectfully demonstrated that Dennis doesn’t know what he’s talking about by showing that he had used equations that presuppose ESC in his attempt to prove that ESC is the only possibility. He was apparently unaware of the assumptions and derivation of the equations he used. Notice that Dennis didn’t even attempt to counter my argument that he had begged the question in his second attempt. Instead, he resorted to ad hominem assertions and additional fallacious argumentation, which I have refuted in this article series.
The Fallacy of Special Pleading
When a person inconsistently insists on a standard for his opponent that he does not apply to himself, this is the fallacy of special pleading. It is the irrationality of hypocrisy. We see an example of this in Dennis’s closing statement number five. There he states, “Lisle falsely claims that conventionalism necessarily follows from special relativity.” First of all, I did not merely claim this; I demonstrated it. I showed via a gedankenexperiment with observers Sarah and Michael that the conventionality of simultaneity is a necessary consequence of the relativity of simultaneity. Dennis didn’t attempt to refute this powerful argument; he didn’t even address it.
But the fallacy comes in Dennis’s next statement where he says, “That is refuted by the continuing debate between conventionalists and the non-conventionalists.” In other words, Dennis is arguing that I can’t be right in my argument for conventionality because not everyone agrees. But Dennis had just made an argument against conventionality. By his same reasoning, his argument would also therefore be refuted since not everyone agrees! If the fact that there is still debate on the issue proves that it’s not settled, then Dennis’s argument does not settle the matter either. Yet in both his papers he claims to have proved the matter. He’s not willing to apply the same standard for himself that he attempts to apply to my position. This is irrational.
Furthermore, is consensus really the measure of truth? There is “continuing debate” between people who argue that Christ rose from the dead and people who claim He didn’t. Does that mean that all arguments for the Resurrection are refuted? By Dennis’s reasoning, it would. But such an appeal to consensus is a fallacy. There was once a consensus that the sun and planets orbited the Earth. But that didn’t make it so. Dennis cannot refute my proof of the conventionality thesis by use of logic, so he attempts to dissuade readers from the position by use of fallacies.
Another example of this fallacy occurs when Dennis complains that light behaves in an unusual fashion in the ASC system – as if light “knows” about the observer and responds accordingly. The problem, of course, is that similar effects happen in the ESC system – of which Dennis approves. So if Dennis were right – that such effects disqualify ASC – then they would also refute the very position he is advocating. He doesn’t accept the same standard for himself as the position he is attempting to refute. This was discussed in the previous article.
Summary and Conclusions of the Series
Much, much more could be said. There were many additional mistakes in physics I identified in Dennis’s second paper, showing that he fundamentally does not understand what the equations of relativity mean. But I have intentionally kept this series as layman-friendly as possible. And I suspect any additional articles exposing Dennis’s ignorance of relativity would only be interesting to physicists who have probably already identified such errors. In any case, my refutation of Dennis’s first attempt to refute the conventionality thesis did go into considerable mathematical detail and should be interesting for both professionals and students of physics/mathematics. It demonstrated that Dennis had assumed an equation based on ESC as the first step in his “proof” of ESC, thereby begging the question. Thus, his first paper is refuted.
In his second attempt, Dennis tried to disprove the conventionality thesis in multiple ways. But none of them stood up to scrutiny. These included showing observational results that are consistent with ESC, but Dennis failed to recognize that all such observations are equally consistent with ASC. Dennis had committed the error of the confirmation bias as demonstrated in parts three and four of this article series.
Dennis repeated a number of errors he made in his first paper, such as thinking that distances are affected by synchrony conventions. These seem to stem from his confusion between ordinary distance and the invariant spacetime interval. This is a really embarrassing mistake: the kind a freshman student of physics might make. In any case, I refuted this error once in my original paper and twice in this series: empirically in part two and mathematically in part nine.
Many of Dennis’s misunderstandings of physics stem from his uncritical acceptance of the philosophy of presentism – the belief that only present things exist. I demonstrated in part eight of this series that such a philosophy is fundamentally incompatible with relativistic physics, despite Dennis’s arbitrary assertions to the contrary. I have been aware of Dennis’s belief in presentism for some time, and I pointed out in my first paper that this may explain our differences. But in his second paper, Dennis decided to press the issue and argued that my view of time was unbiblical. Unfortunately, essentially all of his argumentation was a strawman fallacy – a misrepresentation of what I actually believe. And since presentism is dreadfully antibiblical (it is the philosophy of the heretical view known as “open theism”), I decided it was worthwhile to explain to readers why they need to embrace the biblical view of time.
So in parts five, six, seven, and eight of this series of articles, I refuted presentism on several grounds. First, it is fundamentally antibiblical and even heretical in its implications. If the past is not real, then the resurrection of Christ from the dead is not a real event since it is a past event. Yet the Resurrection is essential for our salvation (1 Corinthians 15:14). The biblical God is beyond time and is equally aware of the real future, the real past, and the real present (e.g., Isaiah 46:9-10). He is not a prisoner of time as presentism requires.
Second, presentism is incompatible with itself. This is because the statement “only present things exist” is a different and incompatible proposition from the same statement made at a different time. This is explained in part five of this article series. The same article also demonstrates that presentism is incompatible with causality and the flow of time.
Finally, presentism is incompatible with the physics of Einstein, one of the most well-tested and empirically confirmed branches of science. This is shown in part eight of this series. I am aware that there are different philosophical interpretations of relativity that use the same mathematics but with different understandings of the nature of time. But they all require more than one point in time to exist and are therefore incompatible with (strong) presentism. It is my sincere hope that these articles will be helpful in leading people out of the heresy of open theism.
What Dennis has demonstrated beyond any doubt is that he is not well-read on the issue of synchrony conventions, has a number of misconceptions regarding relativistic physics, and has no reservations in misrepresenting the position of those whom he critiques. I am sorry to say that this calls into serious question all of his other publications. Please understand that I take no joy whatsoever in exposing Dennis’s ignorance of the technical literature of synchrony conventions, nor in exposing his errors in physics, philosophy, and logic. But he published these errors publicly. And while experts in relativity, logic, and philosophy will easily spot his mistakes, most laymen would not. Therefore, a public refutation is necessary lest anyone think that Dennis actually knows what he is talking about.
Furthermore, if Dennis continues to publish additional errors in these fields, rest assured that we at the Biblical Science Institute will expose them, either here or in a technical journal. Indeed, the new leadership of Answers Research Journal invited me to publish my second refutation of Dennis in that journal. But the sheer number of Dennis’s errors required an entire series that would be too lengthy for a single technical paper. Furthermore, it was my intention to keep this series as layman-friendly as possible. Most of Dennis’s mistakes can be understood by laymen if sufficient background material is provided. It was my goal to do so in this very series.
Additionally, other critics of biblical creation have made similar false claims regarding ASC. I have seen other people mistakenly think that signals from manmade spacecraft can establish the one-way speed of light. But this is because they have neglected the synchrony-independent time dilation computation. This is all explained in part four of this series. Others have asked me about experiments using ultra high-speed cameras that appear to show light propagating. But such experiments are not independent of synchrony assumptions and can only see the light due to a portion of it being reflected. Thus, they are not true one-way tests. This is explained in part three. Still, others have argued that ASC is kinematic while failing to recognize that ESC is also kinematic. This is explained in part ten of this series.
In summary, most objections to ASC are answered either directly or indirectly in this article series. So please refer people to this series if they have a question regarding one of these objections. They are easy to answer with a little background knowledge of the relevant physics. Indeed, I have yet to see a legitimate objection.
Currently, the ASC model is the only biblical creationist cosmological model that is both fully consistent with known physics and has made predictions about observations of distant space that are now verified.[6] These observations include massive, well-developed galaxies at extremely high redshifts.[7] We have a powerful model that has predicted phenomena unexpected and unexplained by secularists. That doesn’t prove that the model is correct, of course. But it has been more successful than any secular model. This may indicate that we are on the right track and suggests that creation cosmology is ahead of secular cosmology. It will be interesting to see if JWST data continue to confirm the predictions of the ASC model.
[1] https://assets.answersresearchjournal.org/doc/v17/refutation_of_lisles_refutation_of_dennis_2024.pdf
[2] https://answersresearchjournal.org/astrophysics/asc-model-contradiction/
[3] Lisle, J. 2024. A refutation of Phillip Dennis’s claims regarding alleged inconsistencies in ASC. Biblical Science Institute (July 13). https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/refuting-the-critics/a-refutation-of-phillip-denniss-claims-regarding-alleged-inconsistencies-in-asc/
[4] https://answersresearchjournal.org/astrophysics/refutation-of-lisles-refutation-of-dennis-2024/
All quotations of Dennis within this article are from the above link.
[5] Lisle, J. 2018. The Physics of Einstein. Aledo, Texas: Biblical Science Institute.
[6] https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/origins/creation-cosmology-confirmed/
[7] https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/astronomy/the-james-webb-space-telescope/#Predictions